Wood elastic characterization from a single sample by resonant ultrasound spectroscopy

The goal of this paper is to propose an experimental method allowing the identification of the complete elastic tensor of anisotropic biological materials such as wood using only one sample. To do so, two complementary methods are used. First, the wood eigen-directions are defined from a sample of spherical shape that is then cut into a cube in a way to perform resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS). The method is successfully applied on a reference beech sample with known orthotropic directions. A comparison of the identified elastic constants with those from the literature and some inferred from ultrasonic transmission measurements is given.

► We propose an experimental method to identify wood elastic constants from one sample.
► The wood eigen-directions are identified thanks to ultrasonic tomography of a sphere.
► A cubic sample with the surfaces in agreement with the symmetry axes is machined.
► Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy is performed and inverse problem solved.
► Elastic tensor is discussed with respect to data for a reference beech sample.